Thread: Knee Pain

I've been using two forms of a seated leg press: one seems to go deeper and hit more glutes than the first, plus seated extensions and seated hamstring curls.
I am a lightweight and my weight reflects this, so I'm not thinking I am using enough to hurt myself.
I have good form.
I do slow, controlled reps.
I like to do some form of leg exercises 3x/week with low weight x30 reps per exercise...maybe 3 different exercises.
After 2 weeks I am guaranteed a "bad" soreness in my knees..Not a good muscular pain, but a bad achy joint paint. Anyone else get this? And if so, besides cardio, what can one do a few times a week without causing this type of pain?

I have the issue of the patellas not tracking correctly over the knee joint. Its very common amongst runner and seems not uncommon amongst women.

Personally I think you need to drop down to 2 days instead of three. IMO that's the easiest place to start making tweaks to see if the situation improves. What I can tell you is once you jack your knees, esp w/ something like tendonitis or bursitis, it never really goes away. (Not that it stays as intense forever, but it will always have the chance to flare up.) You can also work w/ possibly doing one light weight / high rep day and one low rep / high weight day.

In terms of patellar support - you can get patella straps and put them right under the patella - it helps keep them tracking in the right way. I used to use them, but I developed some additional issues w/ my IT band and the tendons that run behind the patella - this is probably a result of an imbalance in the push / pull strength of my hams vs quads, and / or additionally a tendency towards tight piriformis, as a result of a pelvic rotation I developed back in 2003. So now I use nylon / elastic knee sleeves to give a little more support. There are neoprene knee sleeves but I didn't want that big wad of stuff in the bend behind my knee. Same w/ use of wraps. I don't lift that heavy that I need them and the wadding up of stuff behind the knee aggravates the tendons that are already hurting.

Something to keep in mind is, at least in my experience, the knees, shoulders & elbows take the brunt of the stress in accessory work and are usually the first places to start showing the impact. If you're not at a heavy level yet and still having issues with any of these joints, do everything you can to stop doing whatever you're doing that is aggravating them. If you're doing shitloads of accessory work in place of your core lifts - squat, push, pull (squat, dead, press), you're cheating your major muscle groups, , not developing your core w/ functionally correct moves, and putting the bulk of the work on the secondary muscles. Speaking as a 45 year old, 30 year lifting veteran, you are going to fuck yourself up if you don't get your squat / dead / press down and solid as the foundation of your program. And once you fuck yourself up in those joints, they are never really the same.